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Poster:	telecomviking	Date:	February 28, 2011 11:11:40am
Forum:	movie_of_the_week	Subject:	Re: Watching out for Commies

The Russians used to recon and test the DEW Line regularly. And, not just from the air, but also by land.

Don't know if anyone will see this as this thread has been dormant for 7 years. My unlce was one of the guys whose job it was to detect & interdict their efforts. The goal of the "recon" missions were to test defenses for the eventuallity of a Soviet First Strike.

The idea was that a First Strike would be preceded by soviet Speicial Forces infiltrating and destroying portions of the early warning systems. With the US unable to confirm an incoming missle attack, the Soviets hope would be that the US was unable or unwilling to launch, until after their first strike, severely limited our ability to respond.

I was in a business meeting with the CEO of a company that was a retired Colonel who introduced me to a new memeberof his staff, a retired Army Officer. To make a complicated story short, it turned out that this retired offcer knew my uncle, and had been trained by him in the arctic for just such missions in the mid 70's.

Upon confronting my uncle with this story, as he led us all to believe he left the military in 1969 or 70 after Vietnam service, he confirmed the story. He led the entire family to believe he was a shiftlewss bum for over 10 years. I remember as a child the dozens of jobs he had for 4-6 weekas at a time, as a grocery bagger at the Giant Genie or as a clerk at a 7-11 store. He would always just disappear one day, or even tell us he was going mountain climbling, or on a kiyaking trip with buddies and not hear from him again for 8-10 weeks.

Appearently, he wasn't exactly still in the Army. After, confirming the above story, I also told him that was what the other guy had told me, but that I also got the feeling that there was more that hadn't been told. Like that if they were interdicting these guys, then he was probably chasing them back into Siberia and doing the same thing to the Soviets. He smiled and didn't say anything more about that, but that really said it all anyway.